Duty
by Gomo19090
Summary: She was his responsibility, because it was his fault she was the way she was. He would do anything to protect her. AU Vampire apocalypse fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Warning** This is AU, some of the characters are OOC.

Please Review

The new world is silent. It's horrifying at first for a little girl like her, barely eight, to wake up in a place that was not her bright yellow bedroom, but a gray place that had a strange odor. It was horrifying to watching her mother move about as she was putting away articles of clothing into a brown cupboard but… to not hear her footsteps – to not hear anything.

Her large green eyes had darted up to the television which was as noiseless as everything around her. Her small caramel colored hand went to her ears, _which were not working,_ feeling the bandages around her head. She must have whimpered then because her mother turned around quickly, her almond shaped eyes darkened. Her mother's lips had moved but no words came out. At least not words she could hear. Her mother had then darted out, leaving her all alone in the quiet world. She had cried out for her mother, not able to hear her own voice. Her mother returned with a man in a white coat with a few rainbow stickers on the tiny pocket in front. He had said something to her and flashed a bright light in her eyes. She brought her hands to her ears again and shook her head.

'Mommy, I can't hear.' She was pretty sure the words had left her mouth but her ears weren't able to pick up on it. Her mother had pushed by the frowning doctor and took her tiny body into a hug. She could feel her mother sob as she clutched on to her tightly. She began to cry as well, unsure what was going on.

Her daddy came after she had calmed down and a pretty nurse had brought her jello. She loves her daddy, he's big and his hugs are always secure and warm. He hugs her so tight then she thinks he will never let go, she hopes he never lets go. He gently pats her bandaged head with a big dark hand and she can practically hear him say: "It's alright, baby girl. Everything will be alright." Her arms wrap around his neck and she takes a deep sniff of his smell – dirt and sweat; he owned a landscaping business.

He let's go, resting a hand on top of her head as he looks her in the eye. His lips move but…

" _I can't hear you, daddy."_ She can tell he's already aware of this because he only nods, a sad smile gracing his lips. He then turns to Mommy, who is standing silently nearby tears in her eyes. His dark eyes flash angrily and the way his jaw clenches it's like he's yelling something. He's not mad at Mommy though, she can tell. She wonders who he's mad at and for a fleeting moment thinks it's her. She thinks her Daddy is mad at her because her ears don't work no more. Her mother looks worried and nods slowly, tugging at her long black hair.

Her Daddy turns to her before he leaves and smiles at her gently. He then kisses her on her forehead then he's gone. The girl is upset he leaves so quickly, but her mother pats her head and gently puts her underneath the covers. Her eyes grow instantly heavier and before long she's asleep.

The next evening her father returns again in the middle of her doing a crossword puzzle and she's happy to see him, but frowns upon seeing who is with him. A white boy who's around fourteen – dirty and unfortunately dressed – is being led in, her father's heavy dark hand on his shoulder. The boy stares at the ground as he walks stubbornly, but finally looks up at her with very light blue eyes. She thinks they're very pretty.

Her head turns in confusion and she frowns – she had been expecting her brother. Then, a memory returns to her, one with fireworks and her brother fighting a boy who had called them a mean name. A bad name. The boy had eyes like this boy, all light and pretty like the sky.

Her brother had taken her to shoot fire crackers on top of a hill in the woods behind their house. They were alone at first, and then the boy with the bright eyes had appeared with a group of other dirty white boys. The boys had told her and her brother that they couldn't be up there; her brother had asked why and had said the hill was public property - it belonged to no one. The boy in front had called them a name and told them to get off 'his' hill. Her brother had refused and a fight broke out. The boys were evenly matched in age but her brother outweighed the thin boy by a good amount and comes out victor in the fight.

The thin boy had started to limp back over to his group who were throwing jeers and teases at him. The boy must of gotten angry because he turned around, dug into his pockets and pulled out a long stem of fire crackers and lite it and threw it at them. Her brother had shielded his eyes and had yelled for her to do siBonnier.

She could remember loud popping and she covering her eyes with her arm and taking steps backwards out of fear. Then, she was falling – falling down the hill. She woke in the hospital, her ears not working anymore.

Her father pointed at her and said something and those bright eyes had widened briefly before going to the floor. Her father continued to say things she couldn't hear and the boy only stood their listening.

If she could hear, she would have heard her father telling the boy that he would have to take on responsibility for her now. That it was all his fought that his little girl would never hear again. She would have heard her father telling the boy that he was giving him a chance, a chance to not end up like his father and his brother and to be important to someone instead of a burden and nuisance to all. He wouldn't call the cops, who wanted so badly to put another 'Salvatore' behind bars, but it was the boy's choice to make.

HM

When she's eleven she obsessed with vegetation, and spends most of her time in the garden behind their house. It's one of few things she's good at, and hearing isn't an important quality. Her mother worries that an eleven year old girl shouldn't be using up most of her time calf deep in mud and she be out with friends her age. What friends? She's homeschooled and there aren't any of those hearing impaired groups neither in their small town, nor in the town closest by. She likes being alone with her plants anyway. She always enjoyed being close to nature.

She yanks a pesky weed out of the ground with her hands, and wipes the trickling sweat from her brow and looks towards the unrelenting sun with a frown. _Why so hot?_ Her eyes close tightly.

She can sense him rather than hear him approach from behind and a smile appears on her lips and she turns and looks up at the teen, one eye open, and one eye closed. Damon…

He's not at all surprised when she turns around so he's sure to give the girl an unimpressed stare, shaggy dark hair hanging in his eyes. One would believe being able to sneak up on her would be easy. His head shakes and he hands out a baggy to her filled with tiny brown seeds.

She grins and reaches for a notepad laying a few inches away in the grass along with a pen.

 _Thanks,_ she quickly writes and flashes it to him

He scoffs. "You're mom said come in and stop playing in the dirt."

She watches his lips carefully frowning. _Tell her I'm… never mind. Why aren't you in school?_

The males face goes blank. "I don't need to go to school." He smirks. "I'm smart enough already, you're well aware of that, Bon-Bon." She frowns then gives him a blank look, shaking her head. She carefully begins to stand, he's quick with helping her to her feet and she gives him a thankful smile and he looks away. She lightly punches him in the arm and points to her notepad before quickly scribbling something down and showing it too him.

"I'm not hungry." He looks uncomfortable, but he always looks uncomfortable when it comes to him having to interact with any member of her family, including going into her house.

The young girl looks upset and crosses her arms, pouting. He openly groans. This kid was relentless. He guessed her having no one but her momma to be around since her brother left for college had to be awful. A familiar feeling of guilt crawled into his gut, it was his fault.

"Fine, I'll eat with you." He grumbles and has to repeat more clearly after. The girl claps happily and jumps up and down.

HM

When she's seventeen, she's more into reading and wondering off alone. He comes over in the afternoon like usual, but today her mother is fretting around on their lawn looking worried, and for the first time ever the woman thanks God upon seeing him.

"I can't find her." She wails. "She was just going for a walk, four hours ago!" The woman's green eyes are large with worry. "Should I call the cops? Should I call Tony?"

"I'll find her." He interrupts the woman. "She couldn't have gotten into too much trouble." That girl…

Her mother seems to relax a little when he tells her this. "Thank you so much, Damon."

Damon's already walking off the way the girl has likely gone. It takes about fifteen minutes to find the girl sitting on top of a green grassy hill, dressed in a pink sun dress her brown curls fanned out around her, curtaining her face which was bent forward as she quietly read from a book.

He comes to a stop for a moment watching the girl who wasn't quite a little girl anymore. The words of some idiot from town when he had taken her grocery shopping last week rang loudly in his head. _That's a nice bite of ass._ The nauseating dirt bag had said. She had walked by completely oblivious to the man's statements. Damon clenched his jaw just thinking about it. She was so innocent.

He approached her thinking she would turn around; when the girl continues to be engrossed with her book he lightly taps her on her shoulder. She turns around quickly, eyes wide, and a yelp of surprise escapes her. Then she notices it's him and he bemusedly raises an eyebrow. She childishly pouts and he gently ruffles her dark hair.

"What are you reading?" He asks lightly. She's already picking up a notepad lying beside her and scribbles quickly. " _Oliver Twist_ …" He very slowly reads with a scowl. "Shouldn't you be on more advanced reading like _Hamlet…_ some useless shit like that?" Her face goes blank for a second before quickly writing something else on the notepad. "How in the hell do I remind of you Oliver Twist?" He nearly shouts and she quietly giggles. "What are you trying to say?"

She innocently shakes her head.

"Whatever, it's time to get ya home before your ma calls in the military."

Her smile fades and she looks down, gripping the notepad in her lap.

"Not feeling like going home yet, huh?" He questions waiting until she looked up to say. Her eyes watched his lips, and then she lightly shrugged. Looking away again, then back at him, then down again as she once again wrote a few words on her notepad. "You want me to read with you?" She nods. She lightly pats the grass beside her. "Bonnie…" he trails trying to think of an excuse besides her mother wanting her home. "Fine, for a little while," He takes a seat beside her and she happily puts the book for he can see. "Annoying kid…" She lightly punches him, having been watching his face when he had said that. He winces in mock pain.

Near sunset he feels her head hit his shoulder and mumbles under his breath, lightly shrugging to wake the girl. She never stirred. Sighing he closed the book and sat her notepad on top of it and picked the items up before gently picking the light girl up. He was on his way to her house carrying her when she had suddenly lifted up and placed a small kiss in the area near his mouth. He came to a stunned stand-still. He quickly sets her down and takes hold of her shoulders, looking at her firmly.

"Don't ever do that again," His voice was strained. He has no way of being certain she was even able to read his lips in the lack of light, but he hands her back her book and notepad and turns away, taking off walking quickly. His heart moved rapidly in his chest. Why in the hell did she have to go and do that for?

She follows he can tell by her slow moving feet after he's a few paces away. Sometime between then and when they make it back; she attempts to stifle a sob, which nearly throws him off his feet. But he continues walking, ignoring sobs. He had too. It was wrong in so many ways.

When he finally drops her off at home, the girl is dry eyed when her mother attacks her with a hug and leads her inside. He watches her go.

Their relationship isn't even remotely how it was after that. He comes by often still, but he's awkward and she's quiet. Visits grow fewer and fewer as the years go by.

HM

When the vampires awaken he goes for her.

"What in the hell - I ain't gonna be waiting around while you go find that coon." Stefan hisses as Damon ignores him and turns into an apartment's parking lot. He was use to his younger brother's crude way of speaking, it was how they were brought up. It was how everyone of their side of the tracks spoke. Their father had basically beaten the thoughts into her head. Some times he wondered how they would have turned out if they were born in a different family some place else. Before he turned sixteen, before their father's influence was ground int too deep and drugs and alcohol came in to play his brother had been different. He had been soft spoken and kind, thoughtful. "I'm not gonna get ate on for some fucking deaf bitch." Being the same age, Stefan and Bonnie use to play with one another when he went over to sit with her. They had been good friends, Damon wonders does the boy even remembered that.

Damon gets from his truck and looks towards the apartment Bonnie had moved into a few years ago after she had gotten a job at the library in town. He leaves his keys inside the ignition. "If you wanna leave, leave." He grunts at his brother before moving quickly across towards the apartments. It was pretty calm here unlike the other parts of town that were like war zones. A war against vampires. Who would of ever thought?

He quickly rings her doorbell, which would make the lights inside her apartment flicker to tell her someone was ringing her doorbell. A moment later she answers, fully dressed even though it's in the middle of the night, as if she were expecting him.

He moves by her into her apartment without permission as she looks at him blankly. He heads to her bedroom and throws open her closest getting her suitcases and begins throwing clothes into one of them. She tugs on his shirt to get his attention, glaring at him.

"Have you watched the news?" He asks slowly, his eyes flickering over her face.

The woman slowly nods, face blank as ever.

"Then why in the hell are you wondering why I'm here?" He yells at her. "I came to get you." She crosses her arms. "Can you pick another time to be mad at me about what happened nine years ago, huh?" He can tell his words struck deep but he can feel bad later. He closes her suite case and grabs her wrist tugging her out of her apartment. "Now, stay close to me."

He throws her bag on the back of the truck and opens his door for her to get in. She looks from him to a sneering Stefan. Was he honestly suggesting for her to sit next to the bigot?

"What?" Stefan nastily snaps. "I won't bit ya."

Damon light nudges her to the truck and she very reluctantly gets in, leaving as much room between her and Stefan as possible.

"Leave her alone." The older Salvatore son says before Stefan can even open his mouth. He then cranks the car.

"Damn, I haven't even opened my mouth." The younger man grunts. "I ain't gonna mess with your lil' caramel cake, bro. She has nice tits and she ain't bad to look at but I like'em to be able to hear me calling them bitch." The man laughs at his own joke. "Though big brother when are you going to quit taking responsibility for ere, I think after eighteen years you've finally repaid making her go deaf." Damon ignores him, happy that Bonnie was ignoring both of them, staring at her lap.

FV

Bonnie bites her lip and looks up towards Damon who's saying something and glances towards Fin who is also saying something. A sigh escapes her. They've been driving for hours and her legs were cramping, Stefan was taking up as much room as he could – forcing her to press up against the other Salvatore brother – and she had no idea the location they were headed.

She had no idea what was going on.

She had watched the news, read the floating subtitles underneath, and processed the worried faces of each reporter, the grim faces of scientists. Had watched as a reporter went out into the fray of things and had watched as the channel went black when he was attacked by a red eyed creature that resembled a human other then that and the veins protruding from their faces. She had called her mother right away, her mother had answered right away. The large black text had appeared on the lighted screen on her phone, all her mother said was: _Wait for Damon and I love you_

She couldn't even hear those words – the last words, she was sure, her mother would ever say to her. Her mother was handing her over to Damon who would come; there was no doubt about it. Only, she wished he hadn't.

Her eyes had drifted to him and he, feeling her eyes on him, had glanced at her, then back ahead, then at her once again. "We're going to Washington D.C." She frowns. D.C. , the news had said something about a safe center.

Soon the highway turned into more of a parking lot, and all cars came to a complete and utter stop. Words are exchanged over her head between Stefan and Damon, and then Damon steps from the car and holds out his hand for her.

"We're going to find out what's going on." Not wanting to touch him and run the chance of feeling weird, she gets from the truck by herself and smooth down her skirt, looking at him expectantly. If he's put out by her refusing his help, he hides it well. "Stay close to me," he closes the truck's door and begins to lead her towards a group of people. Glancing behind her, she gives Stefan a skeptical look, not feeling comfortable being the middle of a Salvatore sandwich.

Please review


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, I haven't updated in awhile because I got a review that sort of took me out of the mood, but I'm here to give it a shot again. Not a lot happens in this chapter.**

Three Months Later

Bonnie watched as Stefan and Damon argued from the other side of their measly little fire. Their shadows flickered wildly along the walls of the cave they had found a little over a month ago to take refuge in. The brothers did that a lot, argue.

Bonnie pressed the tip of her sneakers into the dirt underneath her and pressed her fingers into into the ground, digits curling around the dusty earth. She hugged her legs to her chest. She took her eyes off the arguing brothers and focused on the fire. Limp, dirty hair fell into her face and she blew it away.

From the corner of her eye she saw Damon approaching her and turned to face him. He had the hood of his thick black jacket up, framing his face. His blue eyes glowed as they stared down at her, serious and slightly apologetic. She frowned at him.

"I'll be back in five hours," he held up a hand.

Bonnie glared at his hand before looking away. He always left and didn't seem to understand why she would have such a problem with it. It was quite possible that he wouldn't come back. Then what? She caught Stefan's gaze from the other side of the fire, he didn't seem very happy either.

Damon grabbed her face gently by her chin, making her face him again as he spoke. "I'm going check again."

She moved her chin from his cold, dirty fingers and glared at him, her chest tight with worry and anger. She couldn't understand why he kept checking. Everyone was gone, either dead or a slave to the vampires.

Damon didn't try explaining any further and stood instead, picking up his rifle from the ground. He glanced towards Stefan, nodded once, before heading towards the mouth of the cave.

She glanced towards Stefan who was left behind to babysit her. She turned her back to the younger Salvatore and Damon's retreating back. A stiff breeze blew into the cave, causing her to shiver. It was getting cold.

Something thick and slightly damp was dropped over her head. Pulling what she knew was Stefan's jacket by its smell from her head, she looked up at him. He raised both of his eyebrows and shrugged before heading towards his backpack which was leaning against the cave wall.

Stefan had surprised her in the three months they had been forced together. Damon left her alone with him a lot when he went out on fruitless missions to find help or whatever. Stefan refused to go with him, convinced their was no rescue and that running around outside their hiding places if you weren't out searching for food or other supplies was beyond stupid and dangerous.

Stefan surprised her because he was surprisingly pleasant when he wasn't in one of his moods. He kept her company and talked too her, ranted really.

Bonnie had just finished sliding his jacket over her shoulders when Stefan appeared in front of her again. He handed her a bag of unboxed Chex cereal and sat across from her.

As hungry as ever, Bonnie wasted no time digging into the bag of cereal grabbing a handful before handing the bag back to Stefan. She eyed the young man as he too dug into the bag. He wore a dirty long sleeved white shirt and a pair of sweatpants. His jeans were drying next to the fire after his failed attempt at hand fishing yesterday. His wet boots rested next to the jeans, leaving him in torn socks.

"Why are you staring at me?" She read his lips and slightly annoyed expression as he munched on his snack.

She finished her hand full of Chex and signed 'You're not so bad'.

He gave her a blank look. "You know I don't understand your hand spasms."

She rolled her eyes. She knew he wouldn't understand.

"You could just talk. You can talk, I know it." She narrowed her eyes at him. He popped his last Chex into his mouth. "You're worried it'll sound fucked up? Its better than you waving your hands around knowing I don't understand anything you're saying."

Bonnie frowned at him, looking up from his lips to his eyes. She shook her head and stared at him expectantly. Usually he would pull out his deck of cards and they would play a game.

"No, Bonnie, you're talking to me today." Stefan stared at her hard. "I'm not going to laugh. What type of person do you take me for?" She gave him a look. He had the nerve to smile innocently. "I won't," he encouraged, "and if anyone does I'll beat their faces in." He looked around the cave as if they weren't the only ones inside. "You hear that? Anyone laugh and you'll have to answer to Stefan Salvatore," he shouted, waving a fist in the air.

Bonnie laughed after she finished reading his lips and deciding she had read right. When she opened her eyes from laughing so hard, she found Stefan was smiling slightly but was looking at her expectantly. Her smile faded.

She hadn't talked a loud since she was laughed at as a child, she hadn't had any plans to either. But Stefan was looking at her so expectantly, with a smile she had no idea his face could make, it made her want to speak, for him. She wasn't sure when Stefan had become her friend, but somehow he had.

She believed him when he said he wouldn't make fun of her.

She swallowed hard. "I said," she licked her lips before continuing to speak a loud, "you're not that bad."

He blinked, then nodded, making a considering face. "I don't know about that," his smile grew, "its just that its the end of the world and you could be stuck with worse."

Bonnie found relief flooding her. He hadn't pointed out that her pronunciation was probably horrible and he had understood her. She smiled. "Thank you, Stefan."

(DD)

They had to leave the cave the next day because Damon's little adventure into town rewarded him a tail, he had been lucky enough to notice.

Bonnie stumbled over another root and was saved from eating the ground by Stefan grabbing her elbow and steadying her. She shot him a thankful look through the frays of her sweaty hair. She panted harshly, her chest burned and her legs ached with exhaustion. Everything was overwhelming and they were moving to quickly, plus, they hadn't explained what was going on. They never did, and it never failed to piss her off.

Stefan propped up against a tree and turned to a panicked Damon. With Stefan's back to her she could see what he was saying, but with the way Damon's eyes darted to her before glaring at his brother and saying, 'don't be fucking stupid, Stefan, and don't pretend to care about her now. This isn't my fault.'

Damon look darkened at whatever Stefan's response was before marching back towards her and grabbing her by her arm and pulling her after him as they moved through the trees. She glanced over her shoulder at a fuming Stefan, before turning to stare at the side of Damon's face.

He glanced at her once before looking away and looking at her again. "We have to keep going, just a little longer." He mouthed slowly. She frowned at him.

They slipped down a muddy incline and followed a thin creek for about a mile, then they stopped at the bottom of a cliff base. Damon let go of her arm and turned to Stefan. Whatever Damon said caused Stefan to throw his arms up in the air in defeat and kick a large rock next to him.

Damon turned to her. "I'm going to climb up there," he pointed to the top of the cliff, "see if there's a place we can go and hid out nearby, its getting dark." The vampire trailing them wasn't one of the ones that could come out during the day. Damon had figured that out when the vampire following him had given up on trying to follow him to the others when the sun had began to come up. But they knew as soon as the sun went down again the creature would pick up his scent again and come after them.

Bonnie merely stared at him. She had nothing to say. He always left to go somewhere without them, she was just waiting on him not to come back, on his own or because he didn't have a choice. She could see it in his eyes at times, he wanted to ditch her. She was a burden. Hell, sometimes when she saw that in his eyes she just wanted to tell him to go and not come back, and she would have if she hadn't been so afraid of the thought.

She knew Damon just used his need to find help as an excuse to get away from a brother who always questioned his decisions and the deaf girl he had been stuck with since he was fourteen years old. She honestly couldn't blame him. It hurt all of the same.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when Damon touched her face, pulling her gaze back to his lips.

"Stefan's gonna stay here with you, don't worry." He glanced towards his brother with a hard look. "We're going to be okay."

He left her alone with a still fuming Stefan. He caught her eye.

"This is all his fault. I told him this was going to happen."

Bonnie didn't comment, merely slid down to the ground and pulled her hood up over her head. It wasn't really Damon's fault, she knew that and Stefan knew that too. They all knew that a vampire would run across them sooner or later. They had been lucky longer than what was left of the human population. They had gone three months alive and not enslaved.

After the highway into D.C had been blocked and the city bombed, everyone had scattered, taking to the trees surrounding the place. Bonnie hadn't heard the explosion like everyone else, so she had been more alarmed then everyone else when everyone began to panic and run. Somehow they found themselves in a group though, it became nothing quickly when night fell and the vampires that weren't able to come out during daylight attacked. They only made out because the vampires were busy feeding on the others in their temporary group. They had been running every since, trying to stay ahead and off any vampire's trails. So they stayed away from the cities vampires had claimed as their own, any vampires out to feed, which usually happened at night, and the vampire slavers the ones who captured humans to be sold to other vampires.

Damon reappeared a while later out of breath. He grabbed her with a large, shaky hand, said something to Stefan she was unable to catch and they were moving again.

The sun was just about to disappear when they came across an old abandoned barn. Damon ushered her inside the dark, foul smelling place, leading her blindly. She hated it. She hated being blind and unable to see and hear, but they found themselves hiding in dark places a lot. Instinctively, she moved closer to Damon, her hold on his hand tightening. He squeezed her hand when they finally stopped walking and they hid themselves behind a stall. Damon settled himself beside her on one side and Stefan sat on her other.

She felt Damon's fingers brush against her throat which she knew meant she was breathing too loudly and that she had to be quiet. She closed her eyes tightly and focused on evening out her breathing. They had to be quiet. Her throat tightened and her pulse raced, chased by her fear.

Damon pressed into her side and Stefan pressed into her other side. She knew they both were trying to calm her down, tell her she was safe even though she couldn't see. They would be her eyes. It was when Stefan grabbed her other hand, and held on just as tightly as Damon, she found the pure panic she had been feeling begin to wane.

(DD)

Bonnie's eyes burned with exhaustion as sunlight began to creep across the floor of the barn. Damon let go of her hand first when sunlight had fully filled the barn. He stood up and shrugged off his backpack and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked pointedly at Stefan before nodding at the broken barn door.

Stefan hesitated before standing and following his brother out of the barn, they both glanced back at her before exiting.

Bonnie decided she was too exhausted to be annoyed by being left out again and pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the sunlight coming in through the door.

They were gone for fifteen minutes when she began to worry. She gnawed lightly on her lip and played with the ends of her frizzy hair. The thought that they left her came and left from her mind, but not completely, especially as more time passed.

Finally deciding she needed to go check herself, she stood up on shaky legs. She had just stepped out of the stall when a shadow stretched across the floor.

The brown haired man standing just inside the barn was neither Damon or Stefan. When the man's eyes bleed red, Bonnie screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Here goes nothing.**

She couldn't hear him, but Bonnie knew that when Damon saw her being pulled out of the van and into the line-up made up of him, Stefan, and some other frightened looking human, he began to freak out. She could tell because his face turned red and he tried to get up from his knees, only for one of the vampires standing behind him to knock him back down.

Bonnie gasped at the force of the blow. Damon spat out blood and angrily shrugged off the vampire's hands as he brought him back up to his knees, but didn't try moving again. Instead the blue eyed man stared at her, eyes shiny with regret and fear. Her gaze caught Stefan's finding that he was frowning deeply.

She was forced into the line next to Stefan and onto her knees. The vampire that found her in the barn had carried her to the road and loaded her into a van, now they were in an abandoned town in front of a pet supply store. Bonnie winced as her knees sunk into the glass littering the asphalt. She looked at Stefan who gently shook his head at her before looking over his and the other guy's head to catch of glimpse of Damon who now seemed to be avoiding looking at her.

So this was it? She looked back at the two vampire's before them, one was the one who had taken her. They hadn't drained them dry yet which meant they planned on selling them. Bonnie wasn't sure which was worse.

Nothing happened for a while. The vampires conversed among themselves and she found herself to afraid to look at them long enough to get a clear idea about what. She had long since lost feeling in her legs when another vehicle pulled up. This one was like the black van she had arrived in, this was a sleek black luxury car.

Bonnie fidgeted as she waited for the occupants to get out. First to step out of the car was a red haired man dressed in a black button up shirt and white tie. He moved to open the backseat door.

Bonnie was surprised when the person who stepped out of the car first was a woman. She was black with light skin and black hair tied back into a neat bun. She wore a flowing black dress and delicate looking heels. Bonnie wasn't sure how she was sure, but she knew the woman wasn't a vampire. Something inside of her told her the woman was something else. Though the next woman to step out of the car Bonnie felt without a doubt was diffidently a vampire.

This woman had long curly brown hair and dark, large brown eyes, both attributes made her seem almost innocent, though there was something about her that told you she wasn't. Something about the glint in the woman's eyes reminded Bonnie being in the dark, but alone, without Stefan or Damon.

Her pulse quickened with fear.

The vampire wore a dark blue dress and blood red paint on her nails. The woman's disturbing eyes instantly zeroed in on Damon and Stefan, a smirk worked its way onto her lips. She looked hungry. Bonnie forgot her fear for herself in that moment began to fear for the Salvatore brothers.

The woman turned to one of the male vampires. "You did well for once, Tate." Bonnie red the vampire's blood red lips. "Though I have no use for the ugly one and the girl, I'll gladly purchase those two." She smirked at the brothers. The woman looked at the other woman with her, bringing Bonnie's attention to the black woman, discovering she was speaking and looking directly at her.

Bonnie swallowed nervously when she realized the vampire's attention was now on her as well. Her body began to shake.

"A witch, you say, Emily?" Bonnie read the vampire's lips. "That is interesting." She began to walk towards Bonnie but stopped and looked towards Damon who Bonnie guessed said something. The vampire smirked. She turned to face Damon completely but turned back to her after a moment. "When I ask a question I demand I be answered." The vampire's face suggested she was irritated.

Bonnie frowned in confusion and risked a glance away from the vampire to look at the other woman, who was frowning at her. When she still didn't respond to whatever question the vampire had supposedly asked her, the annoyance on the vampire's face grew.

The vampire took a step towards her.

Bonnie was suddenly jolted to the side when Stefan shoved his shoulder into hers. From her awkward position on the ground she looked up at him in surprise. He began to say something to quickly for her to understand before looking back at the vampire and saying something else.

Bonnie quickly looked back at the vampire, hoping to figure out what was going on.

The blood-sucking creature looked amused. "That's a shame isn't it, Emily? She's deaf." She said, eyes still on Bonnie.

Emily cocked her head to one side and the way her shoulders moved suggested she sighed. "She still could be of some use, Kathrine." Bonnie caught.

Kathrine seemed to consider this, flicking hair over her shoulder before nodding. She glanced at Stefan then Damon, "I'm sure I can find a use for her."

(DD)

Katherine somehow knew she was afraid of the dark. Maybe it was easy for her to figure out, considering she was deaf, so Bonnie wasn't to impressed by it, though she was surprised that Katherine knew keeping Damon and Stefan away from her was the worse torture she could throw at her.

The vampire hated her for whatever reason and threw her into this dark, isolated prison the very first time she forgot to air dry Katherine's panties out on the lawn behind her mansion. The vampire had been furious and she had been in her time out ever since.

Emily came once a day with a sandwich and water. She never spoke just came with welcomed sunlight and food.

Bonnie was huddled into the metal wall of the box, trying to keep her sanity desperately when the door was opened and Emily stepped in. When her vision adjusted to the sudden light, Bonnie realized the woman didn't carry food with her this time.

Emily waved her forward and Bonnie didn't waste a second as she climbed to her feet and stepped out of the dark and onto the grassy field behind Katherine's mansion.

"Damon," was the first thing she said, followed by, "Stefan?" She didn't even care if she sounded off, she had to know.

They were always with Katherine. She drug them around like pampered purse dogs, but they were really just her personal blood bags. Bonnie remembered the horror she felt the first time she had seen the bite marks on Damon's neck and the paleness of his skin. He had signed at her that he was fine, but she knew better.

"You should focus on yourself," Emily said. Bonnie frowned as she finished reading the woman's lips. Without another word the woman turned and began walking across the yard. Bonnie hesitated before scrambling to follow her.

Emily lead her through the side backdoor which led into the servant quarters built into the basement of the mansion. Hesitantly Bonnie reached out and caught the sleeve of Emily's long dress, stopping the woman and making her turn around to face her. They had bypassed the room she had been given three doors back and Bonnie wasn't sure what was going on.

"Where are we going?" She asked, not wilting under the older woman's gaze.

Emily studied her face for a moment with deep brown eyes before pointing to a door, a door down from where they stood. Bonnie fought the urge to be embarrassed as Emily spun around and moved to the door. She pulled out a key and unlocked the door and stepped inside, she held the door open for Bonnie.

Bonnie decided not to stand in the hallway dumbly and stepped into the sun drenched room. Looking around Bonnie discovered the room was filled with so much light because of a large window along the wall in the very back. The room wasn't a bedroom like Bonnie had originally assumed, no she had never seen anything like it.

There was a long table on one side of the room cluttered with thick books both small and large. There was also a self of jars filled with odd things she couldn't really begin to make any sense of; and dried leaves hung from hooks around the room. Then there was the large black pot, a cauldron really.

She remembered both Emily and Katherine mentioning something about witches. She being a witch.

Bonnie frowned. There were vampires, why not witches? But she wasn't a witch.

Bonnie came out of her musing to find Emily had closed the door and had moved further into the room and was currently fumbling around at the shelf. Bonnie watched her nervously, unsure of what to make of the situation.

She blinked when Emily spun around suddenly, a jar filled with light green liquid in her hands. She stiffened as the woman came to stand in front of her.

"Drink this," she said simply.

Bonnie stared at the jar. "What is it?" The woman couldn't have thought she would really drink something a supposed witch told her to.

"Drink it or you'll have to go back into the box," Emily stated.

Bonnie's stomach dropped. She hadn't even got to see if Damon and Stefan were okay. The woman could have simply left her in the box and stopped feeding her if she wanted her to die, Bonnie told herself. Unless the woman saw that as to inhumane and decided death by green liquid was better.

Bonnie hesitantly reached for the jar, she really did not want to go back to that box. She took in a breath she hoped wasn't her last and drank the liquid.

It didn't taste bad, just really, really sweet. The back of her throat burned.

It took her a moment to realize something was different.

There was a hum in the air, but also not just a hum. She could _hear_ voices, voices coming in through the open window. Shouts from the yard and laughter from a few of Katherine's guests drinking in the gazebo.

She could hear her own sob as it climbed up her throat and escaped past her lips.

"It's temporary," she _heard_ Emily say. But she didn't care, for the first time in years she could hear again. She began to cry, her hands going to cover her face. Emily sighed. "Don't cry, please," the woman's voice was softer than Bonnie had imagined it, "we don't have time for that now."

Bonnie composed herself and pulled her hands away from her face, sniffling her eyes found Emily's lips out of habit.

"What," she corrected her speech upon hearing herself, "what's going on? How did you do that?"

"I put a spell on you which temporarily connected the sensors between your ears and brain. It was quite complicated and will only last a few hours." She explained but Bonnie still didn't understand. "I am a witch and so are you, Bonnie, it was the whole reason I was able to talk Miss Katherine into taking you in along with those friends of yours. I sensed the power in you an-" she cut herself off but continued on flawlessly, changing the subject. "Miss Katherine is having a party later on tonight and I only have that amount of time to teach you the spell for a show she wants to put on."

"But I'm not a witch," Bonnie argued. The last thing she wanted was for that crazy vampire to have another reason to be upset with her.

"You are," Emily said sternly, "you're just an incompetent one. Or untrained." Bonnie frowned. "It isn't a complicated spell, just levitate a couple of lights and a color show. Tricks." Bonnie blinked at her. "If you can't do that, I cannot imagine Katherine keeping you around. She likes her slaves handsome and male." She sounded disgusted but somehow kept her face blank. "You do want to stay here with the brothers, I am sure."

"Of course," Bonnie said quickly. "I don't want to leave Stefan and Damon." Not here with that creature.

"Than I believe you should work hard and pay attention."

(DD)

Bonnie concentrated on keeping the blue and silver mist swirling around the room, creating shapes and world landmarks, trying to block out the music filtering through the room. It was hard, considering it had been so long since she had heard music. She thought she would never hear the piano again. She hummed along with song. She had played the piano before her accident.

"You're doing great," Emily praised her from her side with a smile. Bonnie grinned at the woman, feeling oddly light despite being in a room filled with vampires. Emily was wearing a plain, loose black dress and she wore something identical; Emily had even made her pull her hair back like she did.

Bonnie risked another glance around the ball room, hoping she would see either Stefan or Damon. She wasn't surprised when she didn't see either considering Katherine still hadn't shown up yet, and where she went, they went.

"I'm here," a loud joyous voice called out. Katherine waltzed into the room in a bright red dress and certainly drew attention to herself, but Bonnie didn't pay her too much attention. Her attention instead went to the two men trailing in behind the vampire.

They were both dressed expansive suits, Damon's tie was black while Stefan's matched Katherine's. They looked well, heavier than the last time she had saw them and they were smiling. She frowned, concentration slipping and one of the lights she was holding up began to plummet towards the floor. Bonnie panicked and found herself unable to stop it and it was heading towards the head of a red haired vampire. But then the light stopped and began to climb back up towards the ceiling.

"Pay attention," Emily chided, "that could have ended badly."

Bonnie nodded quickly and silently sent the woman her thanks. Though she was suppose to be paying attention, she found herself looking back towards the brothers. Her pulse quickened and she wanted to speak to them. She watched as they laughed and spoke to some of the people, no, creatures, in the crowd that had surrounded Katherine.

They looked happy. Bonnie hated thinking the way she did, but she thought they shouldn't be so happy. She had spent so much time worrying and thinking about them, but here they were laughing and having a great time at a party with a bunch of blood suckers. Her concentration on the lights slipped again but she was able to catch the one that was falling. It wasn't that she had hoped they were miserable, but they shouldn't be having a good time.

Bonnie's eyes burned.

As if sensing her eyes on him, Damon looked her way. She expected a smile or something, not the blank stare she received. Unable to hold his gaze any longer she looked away, mind whirling. She focused on changing her mist shape from the Egyptian Pyramids and into some Mayan ruins she remembered seeing in a history book.

What did this mean? Where they pretending as if they hadn't been worried about her the whole time she was gone for some reason? Bonnie chewed on her lip as she thought.

"Interesting choice," Katherine's voice scared her so bad she almost dropped all of the lights and her mist shape evaporated into thin air. "Have you ever seen the ruins in person?" The vampire smirked at her.

Bonnie swallowed and tried to calm her racing heart. Her eyes darted from the vampire to the blank faced Damon and Stefan standing behind Katherine. Her eyes flickered to Katherine again.

"I know you're not deaf at the moment," Katherine flipped her hair over her shoulder, "so why are remaining mute right now instead of answering my question?"

"No," Bonnie answered quietly but found her voice slightly edged, "I've never been."

Katherine must have noticed the edge to her voice as well because the vampire's eyes narrowed.

"She learned all of this in only a few hours," Emily spoke up forcefully, lines appearing in her face, "she has great potential."

Katherine's look melted and she looked calmer after a moment. "It is impressive, I didn't believe she could do it," she smirked a little, "maybe we can send her to Central America one day if she continues to be such an asset. Oh, and Emily," she studied her nails, "don't forget to but the binding spell on her."

The lines in Emily's face smoothed out. "Of course," she nodded.


End file.
